UK cities are all so close together and aren't separated by vastly different climate zones or landscapes. If you remember Harbin has an ice festival and lots of Russian architecture, you're unlikely to get it mixed up with Wuhan or Guangzhou in a map quiz.
Agreed. It would be like expecting someone to identify every city in the Ruhr Valley on a map of Europe. They're far too close together for a map that big.
Just in case someone thought I was agreeing with the Macau post, I feel it's worth pointing out I was being sarcastic. On a map of this scale it would obviously be ridiculous to fit in a whole lot of PRD cities.
Guangzhou is an inland city. The Pearl River runs through its center, as do several other smaller rivers, but it's quite a drive from the coast. However, the Pearl River is broad and calm enough that historically many oceangoing ships were able to navigate up it far enough to dock at Guangzhou.
Shanghai is also a city with a fair distance between the downtown and the coast, somewhat ironically given its name, and the urban area has only stretched all the way to the coast since its explosive growth in the 2000s. And Tianjin is the same situation, among many others.
Very few major historic Chinese cities lie directly along the coast. There are a number of historical reasons for that. The "coastal" metropolises are in most cases sited at least twenty or thirty kilometers up from the shore, and often more.
Is there no possible way to add more cities? It's quite clear that Shenzhen can't be added, due to its proximity to Honk Kong and Guangzhou, but what about cities like Tianjin, Hangzhou, Suzhou (granted, Hangzhou and Suzhou are close to Nanjing), Qingdao, Jinan, Xiamen, etc.?
If it merely went by population, then, for sure, Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen would be there. The problem is their proximity to bigger/more significant cities. Thus, Urumqi, Lhasa, and Harbin make the cut, since they are clearly distinguishable. Qingdao, Shenyang, Xiamen, and Kunming might be good adds.
I think the OP implied that Tianjin should be here, considering it is also a prominent city of China. But maybe it is very close to Beijing on the map this big so it didn't make the cut.
Any good device/historical/cultural thing you guys know of to not constantly switch up Chongqing and Chengdu? I know at least a little bit about all the other listed cities except Shenyang but placed that on correctly on the etymology being so different.
Here's a few distinctions between the two that might stick:
Chengdu - the capital of Sichuan province and famous for its panda breeding centre, it is the largest city of Western China. Its name and location have remained unchanged for thousands of years, and during the Warring States Period it was the capital of the Shu Kingdom, before conquest by the Qin.
Chongqing - sits in its own municipality, which has been split off from Sichuan (on a map quiz, you can use the borders to distinguish it from Chengdu). As a municipality it has a status among Chinese cities only shared by Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. It sits on the Yangtze River and for that reason served as temporary capital during WWII, after the fall of Nanjing. I often think of it in terms of the string of major cities along the river - starting at the sea: Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing. Visually, it has a striking skyline tightly enclosed in a loop of the Yangtze.
I for one welcome our new Asian overlords
Shanghai is also a city with a fair distance between the downtown and the coast, somewhat ironically given its name, and the urban area has only stretched all the way to the coast since its explosive growth in the 2000s. And Tianjin is the same situation, among many others.
Very few major historic Chinese cities lie directly along the coast. There are a number of historical reasons for that. The "coastal" metropolises are in most cases sited at least twenty or thirty kilometers up from the shore, and often more.
Chengdu - the capital of Sichuan province and famous for its panda breeding centre, it is the largest city of Western China. Its name and location have remained unchanged for thousands of years, and during the Warring States Period it was the capital of the Shu Kingdom, before conquest by the Qin.
Chongqing - sits in its own municipality, which has been split off from Sichuan (on a map quiz, you can use the borders to distinguish it from Chengdu). As a municipality it has a status among Chinese cities only shared by Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. It sits on the Yangtze River and for that reason served as temporary capital during WWII, after the fall of Nanjing. I often think of it in terms of the string of major cities along the river - starting at the sea: Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing. Visually, it has a striking skyline tightly enclosed in a loop of the Yangtze.